EARTHSYS 133:Social Enterprise Workshop (URBANST 133)

Social Enterprise Workshop: A team based class to design solutions to social issues. In the class students will identify issues they are interested in, such as housing, food, the environment, or college access. They will join teams of like-minded students. Working under the guidance of an experienced social entrepreneur, together they will develop a solution to one part of their issue and write a business plan for that solution. The class will also feature guests who are leaders in the field of social entrepreneurship who will share their stories and help with the business plans. The business plan exercise can be used for both nonprofits and for-profits. Previous students have started successful organizations and raised significant funds based on the business plans developed in this class. There are no prerequisites, and students do not need to have an idea for a social enterprise to join the class. Enrollment limited to 20. May be repeated for credit.

2019-2020 Winter

EARTHSYS 137:Concepts and Analytic Skills for the Social Sector (URBANST 132)

How to create and grow innovative not-for-profit organizations and for-profit enterprises which have the primary goal of solving social and environmental problems. Topics include organizational mission, strategy, communications/marketing, financing and impact evaluation. Opportunities and limits of methods from the for-profit sector to meet social goals. Perspectives from the field of social entrepreneurship, design thinking and social change. Focus is on integrating theory with practical applications. Enrollment limited to 20. Prerequisite:consent of instructor. Email lalitvak@stanford.edu

(formerly
IPS 274) Comparative approach to sustainable cities, with focus on international practices and applicability to China. Tradeoffs regarding land use, infrastructure, energy and water, and the need to balance economic vitality, environmental quality, cultural heritage, and social equity. Student teams collaborate with Chinese faculty and students partners to support urban sustainability projects. Limited enrollment via application; see internationalurbanization.org for details. Prerequisites: consent of the instructor(s).

In the next two decades floods, droughts and famine caused by climate change will displace more than 250 million people around the world. In this course students will develop an increased understanding of how different stakeholders including scientists, aid organizations, locals, policy makers, activists, and media professionals communicate the climate change crisis. They will select a site experiencing the devastating effects and research the voices telling the stories of those sites and the audiences who are (or are not) listening. Students might want to investigate drought-ridden areas such as the Central Valley of California or Darfur, Sudan; Alpine glaciers melting in the Alps or in Alaska; the increasingly flooded Pacific islands; the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast, among many others. Data from various stakeholders will be analyzed and synthesized for a magazine length article designed to bring attention to a region and/or issue that has previously been neglected. Students will wri
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In the next two decades floods, droughts and famine caused by climate change will displace more than 250 million people around the world. In this course students will develop an increased understanding of how different stakeholders including scientists, aid organizations, locals, policy makers, activists, and media professionals communicate the climate change crisis. They will select a site experiencing the devastating effects and research the voices telling the stories of those sites and the audiences who are (or are not) listening. Students might want to investigate drought-ridden areas such as the Central Valley of California or Darfur, Sudan; Alpine glaciers melting in the Alps or in Alaska; the increasingly flooded Pacific islands; the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast, among many others. Data from various stakeholders will be analyzed and synthesized for a magazine length article designed to bring attention to a region and/or issue that has previously been neglected. Students will write and submit their article for publication.nnFor students who have completed the first two levels of the writing requirement and want further work in developing writing abilities, especially within discipline-specific contexts and nonfiction genres. Individual conferences with instructor and peer workshops. Prerequisite: first two levels of the writing requirement or equivalent transfer credit. For more information, see
https://undergrad.stanford.edu/programs/pwr/explore/notation-science-writing.

This course will advance students understanding of economic, legal, and political approaches to avoiding or managing the problem of global climate change. Theoretical contributions as well as empirical analyses will be considered. It will address economic issues, legal constraints, and political challenges associated with various emissions-reduction and adaptation strategies, and it will consider policy efforts at the local, national, and international levels. Specific topics include: interactions among overlapping climate policies, the strengths and weaknesses of alternative policy instruments, trade-offs among alternative policy objectives, and decision making under uncertainty. Prerequisites:
Econ 50 or its equivalent.

Last offered: Spring 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI

EARTHSYS 160:Sustainable Cities (URBANST 164)

Service-learning course that exposes students to sustainability concepts and urban planning as a tool for determining sustainable outcomes in the Bay Area. Focus will be on the relationship of land use and transportation planning to housing and employment patterns, mobility, public health, and social equity. Topics will include government initiatives to counteract urban sprawl and promote smart growth and livability, political realities of organizing and building coalitions around sustainability goals, and increasing opportunities for low-income and communities of color to achieve sustainability outcomes. Students will participate in team-based projects in collaboration with local community partners and take part in significant off-site fieldwork. Prerequisites: consent of the instructor. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center.)

This cross-disciplinary course surveys the history and prehistory of human ecological dynamics in Australia, drawing on geology, climatology, archaeology, geography, ecology and anthropology to understand the mutual dynamic relationships between the continent and its inhabitants. Topics include anthropogenic fire and fire ecology, animal extinctions, aridity and climate variability, colonization and spread of Homo sapiens, invasive species interactions, changes in human subsistence and mobility throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene as read through the archaeological record, the totemic geography and social organization of Aboriginal people at the time of European contact, the ecological and geographical aspects of the "Dreamtime", and contemporary issues of policy relative to Aboriginal land tenure and management.

Environmental justice means ensuring equal access to environmental benefits and preventing the disproportionate impacts of environmental harms for all communities regardless of gender, class, race, ethnicity or other social positions. This introductory course examines the rhetoric, history and key case studies of environmental justice while encouraging critical and collaborative thinking, reading and researching about diversity in environmental movements within the global community and at Stanford, including the ways race, class and gender have shaped environmental battles still being fought today from Standing Rock to Flint, Michigan. We center diverse voices by bringing leaders, particularly from marginalized communities on the frontlines to our classroom to communicate experiences, insights and best practices. Together we will develop and present original research projects which may serve a particular organizational or community need, such as racialized dispossession, toxic pollution and human health, or indigenous land and water rights, among many others.

ECON 1:Principles of Economics

This is an introductory course in economics. We will cover both microeconomics (investigating decisions by individuals and firms) and macroeconomics (examining the economy as a whole). The primary goal is to develop and then build on your understanding of the analytical tools and approaches used by economists. This will help you to interpret economic news and economic data at a much deeper level while also forming your own opinions on economic issues. The course will also provide a strong foundation for those of you who want to continue on with intermediate microeconomics and/or intermediate macroeconomics and possibly beyond. In Spring 2019-2020
Econ 1 will use all class time for team-based learning instead of lectures; class attendance will be mandatory, and enrollment will be limited to 120 students.